


In a Kinder Universe

by Quipxotic



Series: In a Kinder Universe [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle of Scarif, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, For Want of a Nail, Gen, Major Character Injury, Scarif, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-15 12:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9235655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quipxotic/pseuds/Quipxotic
Summary: The future sometimes balances on the slimmest of threads, or even a snagged communications cable.





	1. Small Things

> _“It’s become fashionable in some quarters to claim Jyn Erso went to Scarif intending to die a martyr - that she realized she had lost everything and chose her path by its inevitable end. I will dispute this claim until my own dying days. I think Jyn fully recognized who she was and sought a way to channel her best and worst impulses, her darkest moments and her brightest, toward a cause worthy of her true incandescence._
> 
> _In a kinder universe, she would have walked away from Scarif. I cannot imagine who she would have become, but I think she would have been extraordinary.”_ \- From “Unpublished Reflections on Jyn Erso," from the personal files of Mon Mothma [ _Rogue One: A Star Wars Story_ (p. 322) by Alexander Freed]

The future sometimes balances on the slimmest of threads, or even a snagged communications cable.

Bodhi ran as quickly as he could with the weight of the spool of KS-12 cable strapped to his back. Every moment he expected to hear blaster fire or feel the pain of being shot. He dropped to his knees beside the network console and shoved the connector end of the cable into place. He only waited the few seconds needed to make sure the network recognized the connection; then he stood, crouching as low as he could managed, and ran back to the ship. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed an odd movement in the cable as it spooled out behind him. He risked a glance back and spotted the problem: it had snagged under one of the crates stacked around the landing pad. He had just enough cable to reach the ship, so he stumbled to a stop and retraced his last few steps. A quick tug freed the cable and he resumed running, one hand on the cord to urge it away from other obstacles, gasping for breath in the humidity of Scarif. 

Unbelievably, he reached the ship without further incident - pelting past the rebel troops guarding it and up the ramp to the cabin. 

“In!” Tonc whispered, and the four soldiers with him complied instantly. They had barely made it back inside the shuttle when a group of stormtroopers began their slow march toward the landing pad. One of the rebels spotted them and hissed a warning, causing all the other rebels in the ship to freeze. They waited with apprehension to see what the approaching troops would do. Had their hiding spot been identified?

Bodhi had already scrambled to the terminal and, shaking with adrenaline, plugged in the other end of the cable. When the terminal made a connection to the network console he nearly cried out, all the fragility of their current situation temporarily forgotten in the sheer joy of this improbable success. Bodhi caught Tonc’s glare of annoyance at the noise he was making and clamped a hand over his own mouth in panic and apology. As they waited in silence, Bodhi noticed the blinking light on the terminal which signaled that the ship’s computer wasn’t connected to the comm tower. Bodhi said a silent prayer to whoever was listening that Melshi’s team would find the master switch soon, that the stormtroopers would walk past the shuttle, that Jyn and Cassian would make it to the tower to broadcast the Death Star plans to the rebel fleet. So many things had to go right for them to succeed but still, Bodhi felt sure it was possible. They just needed a bit of luck.

The seconds of silence became minutes. The rebel stationed on the far side of the ship’s exit hatch gave a hand-signal Bodhi didn’t understand, but all the rebels seemed to relax slightly. He looked to Tonc in confusion. The man gave him a small, cautious smile and mouthed the words, “They’re passing us.” Bodhi sighed in relief and waited for the all clear signal. He was eager to get up the ladder to the cockpit. He needed to be ready to call the rebel fleet the instant a connection was made to the tower. 

It was a small thing, over in an instant - the cable that was pulled free before it could become wedged under the crate. But it meant Bodhi didn’t have to retrace his steps all the way from the ship to the snag or struggle to free it, taking up valuable seconds; it meant he wasn’t spotted by the Imperials, so Tonc didn’t have to fire on the stormtroopers to save him. It gave them all bit more time to go undetected. 

And with that small event, the fates of several people on Scarif changed.


	2. Small Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The changes are small at first...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Submitted with extensive apologies to Alexander Freed because I know this isn't much of a change from what's in the book, but I need it to set up some other things.

Bodhi was hunched down in the cockpit when the message came through his comlink.

“Bodhi? Are you there?” Cassian’s voice sound husky, as if he’d recently been yelling. “Talk to me!”

“I’ve got the ship plugged into the comm console on the landing pad, but we’re still waiting on the others to locate a master switch.” 

“Call them again! They have to make that connection!” There was a tone in Cassian’s voice that worried Bodhi deeply. It wasn’t anger, he decided, or even desperation. It sounded like grief. “We need to get the plans off Scarif!”

“Are you and Jyn okay?” Bodhi asked hurriedly. He felt his heart hammer in his chest with a fear he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“We’re fine!” Cassian sounded angry now. The comm went quiet except for the sound of Cassian breathing heavily, seemingly struggling to get himself under control. “We’re changing the plan,” he said in a calmer tone. “We may not make it back to the ship, but if we can get to the top of the tower we can still broadcast the schematics.” Bodhi started to press him for more information, but Cassian continued. “Which means you’ve got to get through to the fleet! The files are too big to make it through the shield without significant data loss, so they’ve got to take down the shield! Do you understand, Bodhi?”

No, he thought, because you won’t tell me what’s going on where you are that’s forcing you to make these changes. But he knew that wasn’t what Cassian meant and he could hear the strain in the man’s voice, so he focused on the problem of the broadcasting the Death Star plans. A few brief calculations were all he needed to reach the same conclusion as Cassian. “You’re right, the complete data won’t make it through with the shields intact.”

“Exactly. So when you talk to the fleet,” Cassian paused, which led Bodhi to suspect he really meant if instead of when, “tell them to take down the shields and then quickly get in position to receive the message. We’re only going to have one chance to get this right.”

“What does that mean?” Bodhi couldn’t contain his worry any longer and his voice was louder than he intended. Tonc shushed him from his guard position in the cabin. They hadn’t been fired on yet, but that didn’t mean there weren’t stormtroopers within earshot. Bodhi continued more quietly. “What's your situation?”

“No time for that,” Cassian said impatiently. Bodhi heard the sound of a blaster shot and breaking glass. “Just get it done!” Then the comlink went silent, the connection cut. Bodhi made a face at the device, a pointless action since he knew Cassian couldn’t see him but it made him feel better anyway. Then he tried to get in touch with Melshi, Baze, Chirrut, or anyone in the rebel ground troops.

“Rogue One. Rogue One. Does anyone copy?”


	3. Like a Snowball Leading to an Avalanche

“Understood, Rogue One,” Admiral Raddus’s voice announced over ship’s comm. “We’ll get that shield down.” Bodhi heard snippets of a conversation in the background before the signal from the rebel fleet cut out completely.

For a moment, he felt nothing but overwhelming joy and relief. They’d done it! They’d managed to let the Alliance know what they needed to do! Soon the fleet would take care of the shield and then Jyn and Cassian could send them the Death Star plans. He reached for his comlink and yelled excitedly into it. “Rogue One! Good job, guys! We did it!” But the comlink remained silent in his hand. Bodhi’s happiness faded quickly to be replaced by a growing sense of fear. “Melshi? Chirrut? Baze? Is anyone out there?”

The sounds of blaster fire brought Bodhi back to his own situation. It had taken the Imperial troops a while, but they’d finally realized there were rebel forces hiding in the cargo shuttle. He briefly wondered whether it was the change to the master switch or the use of the comms tower that had alerted them. Another intense salvo convinced him that the whys and hows weren’t his most critical concerns. If they stayed on the landing pad they’d be an easy target for stormtroopers. It wouldn’t take long for Tonc’s handful of rebels to be overwhelmed. But if they took off, there was every chance that a TIE would pick them off in the air. Either way, the options were bleak.

Bodhi heard a cry of pain from inside the ship’s cabin. His thoughts immediately turned to Tonc and the risks the rebels had taken to protect him this far. He owed them his life, the least he could do was give them the best chance to survive. The decision made, he ran to the ladder and looked down. What he saw chilled him. Two of the five rebel soldiers lay still - wounded, dead, or dying, Bodhi couldn’t tell. He noticed with relief that Tonc was still standing, only to experience a sudden panic as the soldier leaned dangerously out of the ship’s hatch to fire at their attackers. 

Blaster fire ricocheted off the back of the cabin and Bodhi ducked instinctively. After a lull, he stood back up and tried to figure out how to get down the ladder without getting shot.

“Hey!” Tonc had spotted the movement and was looking expectantly at Bodhi. “Did you get through?”

“Yes,” he called back. “Now we need to unhook the cable so we can get out of here.” Maybe, if it wasn’t too late - please don’t let it be too late - they could rescue the others too.

The rebels shared a look. The soldier closest to the terminal nodded and said, “I’ve got it.” Bodhi felt guilty that he couldn’t remember the man’s name. Dremaeck maybe? There just hadn’t been time to learn them all before the mission. 

“We’ll buy you some time,” Tonc promised. At a signal, he and the soldier on the other side of the hatch laid down a steady stream of cover fire. The third soldier squared his shoulders and rushed to the terminal, pulling the cord free with a yank. A sudden volley of blaster fire forced Tonc and the soldier at the hatch to dive out of the way. The soldier at the terminal froze for an instant and then fell, a large burn in his back showing where he’d been shot. 

They had no time to grieve. The remaining SpecForce soldier grabbed the cable and threw it out of the airlock, grunting in pain as a shot clipped her shoulder. Tonc hit the controls that retracted the ramp and closed the hatch. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled up at Bodhi, who scrambled to comply. 

Running to the pilot’s seat, Bodhi hurriedly strapped himself in. Within seconds he had the shuttle in the air, weaving to avoid the constant barrage of enemy fire from the ground. Despite his best efforts the ship was struck multiple times. He could only hope that the shots didn’t hit anything vital. Then he turned the ship in the direction of the Citadel Tower.

As the cargo shuttle moved out of blaster range, Bodhi struggled to work the controls without the aid of a co-pilot. Periodically he could see TIE fighters and X-wings battling across the skies above Scarif. He had to alert the rebels to their location; the last thing they needed was to be taken down by friendly fire. “Alliance ships, Rogue One is in the air in an Imperial shuttle. Anyone have eyes on ground troops in need of evac? Can anyone see the top of the comm tower?” He heard only a sputter of static in reply and wondered if the ship’s communication systems had been damaged.

Soon someone was climbing the ladder behind him. Moments later, Corporal Tonc slid into the co-pilot seat. 

“Melshi!” Tonc yelled into his comm. “Melshi, are you there?” He too received only silence, which seemed to confirm Bodhi’s worst fears. “Melshi!” Tonc’s voice held a note of desperation now. He shut off the comlink and turned to Bodhi. “Can you search the ground for them?”

“I don’t think we’ll have time.” Bodhi was staring through the forward view screen in horror. “It’s here.” Tonc followed his line of sight until he saw it too. A large grey sphere hung suspended above Scarif like a brand new moon, but covered with lines that owed their patterns to technology rather than nature.

“What the hell is that?” Tonc asked, stunned.

Bodhi swallowed slowly and shook his head. The whole situation felt like something out of a nightmare. “That,” he said as last, “is the Death Star.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See and here is where I'm regretting my title. Because if it were truly a kinder universe I'd have been able to figure out a way to get them all out alive. Sorry Chirrut and Baze.


	4. The Fall

Smoke obscured most of the readouts on the control panel and Jyn was too tired to focus on them anyway. But the transmission completion display was large enough that she could spot it easily. As she watched, the bar showed 30%, 50%, 75% and then finally 100% completion. 

The rebel fleet should have the plans now. Her job was done.

Lacking the energy to celebrate her success, she simply turned to smile at Cassian as he leaned heavily on a railing near the turbolift. He looked both wonderful and awful - alive past all hope but terribly wounded. She stumbled over to him and gently put an arm around him to support some of his weight. 

“Do you think they got it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied quietly, “I know they did.” She helped turn him toward the lift. They might not have any hope of escaping the planet but that didn’t mean they had to die on top of the tower. 

She didn’t notice the sound at first, so focused was she on getting Cassian moving. But even when the engine noise grew incredibly loud behind them, she didn’t turn. She just assumed it was another TIE fighter and if the Imperials wanted to kill them now, she decided, they’d have to shoot them in back. Frankly, she was too exhausted to care anymore.

“Hey,” a voice yelled. “Jyn! Captain Andor! Stop!” 

Cassian and Jyn shared a confused glance and then slowly, painfully turned around. In front of them, hovering as close to the wreckage of the catwalk as it could without becoming entangled, was an Imperial cargo shuttle. A man was gripping onto the frame around the open airlock. He looked vaguely familiar, but it took Jyn a while to remember his name. Tonc? Yes, that was it.

“Come on!” Tonc yelled. “Don’t you know a rescue when you see one?”

“You go,” Cassian mumbled, before Jyn could even process what Tonc’s words meant. “I’ll slow you down.” When she looked at him incredulously he just smiled, tiredly but with a hint of his old boyish charm, and began pulling away from her. “It’s fine. Go.” 

She remembered that smile. It was the one he used when he lied. 

“No.” She gripped his waist hard enough that he flinched. I’m not leaving you behind, she thought, not now, not after everything we’ve gone through. But out loud she just repeated the word, “No!” and began dragging them both toward the hovering ship.

It wasn’t far to walk, but they both had leg injuries which made their progress agonizingly slow. Somewhere in the back of Jyn’s mind a clock began ticking and she wondered, has the Death Star fired yet? How long do we have? But since she had no way of knowing, she focused on what she could control: forcing one foot in front of the other. Cassian was leaning on her heavily now and with every step he seemed to grow weaker.

After what felt like an age, she heard Tonc say something. She looked up, realizing with surprise that she and Cassian were only a few paces from the ship now. Tonc had been joined at the airlock by a female soldier Jyn didn’t recognize, but he was yelling to someone else who she couldn’t see. “Take us down a bit and hold it steady! They’re too injured to climb up.” If there was a reply, Jyn couldn’t hear it, but the ship lowered so the the opening of the airlock sat slightly below the edge of the tower platform. When Tonc turned back to Jyn, she noticed how worried he looked. “Okay, here’s the hard bit,” he yelled to her, “I need you to jump.”

She stared at him for a few seconds and then choked out a laugh of disbelief. 

Tonc acknowledged her reaction with a small, guilty smile. “I know, I know.” He nodded to the women beside him and then gestured to the cords attached to both of their belts, securing them to the ship. “Just fall then. We’ll catch you. Pull you in.”

It was dangerous, but no more so than anything else they’d already done that day. And every moment she delayed put all their lives at risk. “Okay,” she said, as she toed her way to the end of the platform. “Take Cassian first.” 

“No time,” Tonc yelled. He glanced to his left, past the tower to the horizon, and his expression changed from worry to dread. “Just do it now!”

Jyn looked at Cassian who nodded ever so slightly. He didn’t seem to have the energy for anything else. Wordlessly she wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingers into his clothes for a better grip, and tipped them both over the edge.

For an instant they were falling. Then Jyn felt strong hands grab them, pulling and changing the direction of their momentum. They thudded hard against a metal floor, tangled in a pile with their rescuers. The female soldier freed herself first and dashed to the airlock controls. 

“We’ve got them, Bodhi,” Tonc yelled up toward the cockpit as the door hissed shut. “Get us out of here! Fast!”


	5. Escape

Bodhi worked frantically at the ship’s controls. The shifting weight in the cabin wasn’t a problem - this was a cargo ship after all and it could handle all the issues that came with much heavier loads. But it was difficult to keep the ship steady, avoid the wreckage around the platform, and make the adjustments necessary in preparation for their escape, all without the aid of a co-pilot. 

It was especially difficult to accomplish all that while he felt so utterly panicked. 

In some ways, the arrival of the Death Star had been helpful. The sight of it distracted the other ships in Scarif’s airspace and allowed Bodhi to fly the shuttle completely unchallenged all the way to the Citadel. By the time they’d gotten half-way there he’d noticed starfighters, both Imperial and Alliance, disengaging from the battle and heading out of the planet’s atmosphere. By the time the shuttle approached the tower, he could see Imperial ships lifting off from pads and hangers all around them. Evidently some of the Citadel’s staff had grave doubts about the Death Star’s purpose above their planet. For what it was worth, Bodhi thought they had the right idea.

But while the scene was chaotic and the work delicate, none of that was what really bothered him. He kept seeing the destruction of Jedha City playing over and over in his head. The fear, confusion, pain, and horror that he’d experienced then kept threatening to overwhelm his senses now, causing his heart to beat rapidly and his fingers to tremble. He caught himself holding his breath several times and had to concentrate on breathing evenly. He couldn’t risk passing out, not when all their lives were in his hands. Again. 

“Keep it together. Keep it together,” he muttered to himself. “You can do this.”

He heard a loud thump in cabin and hoped it meant that they were all okay and onboard. As soon as Tonc yelled the all-clear, Bodhi gunned the engines, urging the shuttle away from the planet, maximum speed. He couldn’t see what was happening behind them, but the aft sensors were registering a massive energy build-up from an unidentified, and very large, Imperial craft - which seemed to be enough of an answer in itself. “Come on, come on!” he urged the ship as he made more adjustments. “Faster!” 

He was so intent on the shuttle’s systems that he didn’t notice Tonc climbing up the ladder to the cockpit. 

“Zas is getting them settled,” Tonc said, startling Bodhi as he began strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat. “They’re both pretty beat up, but Captain Andor is in bad shape. I think he needs medical attention ASAP.”

“We have to get out of here first,” Bodhi replied bluntly. He couldn’t afford to think about Jyn and Cassian right now. His concern for them was too much of a distraction. “Have you flown before?”

“Not solo,” Tonc admitted, “but give me a second to look things over. I think I can help.” 

The comms unit sputtered to life suddenly and over the hiss of static they could barely heard General Raddus’s voice. “Rogue One - may the Force be with you. All ships, prepare for jump to hyperspace!” 

“What does that mean?” Tonc asked.

Bodhi could guess exactly what it meant. “Oh hell,” he muttered, frantically flipping switches, trying to squeeze every ounce of extra speed out of the cargo ship’s engines. “No, no, no, not yet…”

Then all the warning and sensor alarms in the cockpit seem to go off simultaneously. Massive energy discharge warning. Atmospheric warning: hurricane force winds, please make adjustments. Proximity alert: brace for flying debris. Too many warnings for Bodhi to even process. But they all indicated the same thing: the Death Star had fired.

Bodhi made the choice in an instant.

“Making hyperspace jump,” he said, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He plotted the course to the first location that came to mind.

“What?” Tonc looked over at him, dismayed. “Where to? Aren’t we still in the atmosphere?”

Bodhi answered him in reverse order. “Yes. And anywhere but here.” Then he hit the final switch and the cargo shuttle lurched into hyperspace. 


	6. The Survivors

Jyn was tired - almost too tired to feel relieved at being rescued - so for a while she lay where she’d landed. One arm wrapped tightly around Cassian, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing, she tried to delay the moment when she’d have to move again.

“Jyn?” Cassian shook her slightly. When she didn’t react immediately he shook her more insistently. “Jyn! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she replied, irritably. “We just helped save the universe, can’t I rest for five seconds?” She glanced up at his face and instantly regretted her reaction. He looked panicked, clearly worried that she’d been hurt in their fall. “Really, I’m okay,” she reassured Cassian as she gently disentangled herself from him. “I’m not the one who got shot and fell off the tower.”

“I’m fine,” Cassian grumbled as he tried to sit up. Then he gasped out in pain and lay back against the floor of the cargo shuttle.

“Yeah, you look it,” Jyn remarked dryly. “What hurts most?”

“Leg.” Cassian gritted his teeth as he spoke. “A strain or a break maybe?”

Jyn blinked at him in amazement. “You climbed up the comm tower with a broken leg?”

“Didn’t have much choice,” he replied simply.

“I hate to interrupt,” an unfamiliar female voice said from behind Jyn, “but maybe we should get you up off the floor?” The soldier who had helped Tonc get them onto the ship walked into Jyn’s line-of-sight. “Then we’ll see what we can do about your leg, Captain.” She offered her hand and pulled Jyn to her feet. “Name’s Danva. Zas Danva. We didn’t get a chance to talk…you know…before…”

Between them, Jyn and Danva helped Cassian stand and walk slowly to a makeshift cot at the back of the cabin. Jyn watched as the woman pulled a duffel out from under the cot and began sorting through the contents. “We don’t have much,” Danva admitted, “mostly the standard-issue medpacs. And even if we did have medical gear, I’m no medic. But I did find this.” She pulled out a small hand-held medical scanner. Danva looked to Jyn. “So what happened? You said he got shot and fell off the tower?”

“You could ask me.” Cassian spoke haltingly at first, as if he had to struggle for every word. “I was there too.” He turned slightly and stifled a pained groan. “The shot…grazed my side. It’s not important. The fall was only a couple of feet.”

Jyn remembered that moment - her indecision about whether to climb or fight, how Cassian and one of the Imperial guards had fired their blasters simultaneously and had fallen together. She had been sure he was dead. “It looked like more than that to me.” 

“You could have internal bleeding, concussion, any number of other things, as well as broken bones, of course,” Danva suggested.

“Thank you, Corporal.” Cassian’s reply was cheerfully sarcastic, but he closed his eyes for a moment as if the conversation had wearied him. He looked very pale.

It was Jyn’s turn to shake him lightly. “Hey. Hey!” She waited until he opened his eyes before she continued. “Stay with me, Cassian. Okay?”

He gave her a hint of a smile. “All the way.” Then he turned his focus back to Danva. “She’ll try to deny it, but Jyn needs medical care too. Don’t let her talk you out of that.”

The shuttle shook violently, interrupting their conversation and forcing Jyn and Danva to brace themselves against a nearby wall. For the first time since their improbable rescue, Jyn remembered the Death Star. That thought brought with it memories of the mission and everyone who had come with them to Scarif. 

She looked around at the empty cabin as the cargo shuttle continued to shutter. Chirrut, Baze, K-2, Melshi, Sefla - how many others had they left on the planet?

“Who else is onboard?” Jyn asked Danva.

“Just me, you two, Tonc, and Bodhi,” the corporal answered solemnly. 

Five survivors, Jyn thought numbly. Only five. The odds of success, much less survival, had been long. They all knew that going in and they all agreed it was worth the risk. It was the right choice, the only real choice - Jyn knew that deep in her bones - but that knowledge wouldn’t make the losses any easier to live with.

Assuming that they survived long enough to grieve. They could hear the whine of the engines now. The pilot - it must be Bodhi, Jyn thought - was pushing the systems hard for maximum speed. Jyn could guess the reason: the Death Star had fired on the planet. Anyone who hadn’t escaped off-world would be dead in seconds. Jyn wondered how far the blast would reach into the planet’s atmosphere. She’d been ready to die after the mission was completed, content that she had done all she could, but to be killed now after almost escaping felt particularly cruel. She reached out and took Cassian’s hand and felt him lightly squeeze back.

They heard raised voices from the cockpit and a moment later the cargo shuttle lurched violently. Jyn and the corporal rushed to cover Cassian, to protect him from whatever was about to happen. But just as suddenly as it had started the turbulence stopped, and Jyn recognized the familiar hum of hyperspace travel.

“We made it?” Jyn said with a nervous laugh, not completely sure that it was true. But the shuttle seemed intact and its flight seemed normal. Jyn felt the relief she’d been too tired to experience before. She looked down at Cassian with a grin. 

“Lucky us,” he whispered back and tried to smile. The look in his eyes worried Jyn - he’d had that same look in the data vault. 

Before she could say anything to him about it, Danva was hovering over her, urging her to lean back against a section of wall a short distance from the cot.

“Cassian is right, you need medical care,” she said over Jyn’s objections, “but right now I’ll settle for you resting while I see to him. I’ll be able to do what I can for him quicker if you’re not in the way.”

Jyn reluctantly agreed. Her legs and shoulders throbbed with pain, and her whole body ached. She watched Danva work, determined to stay awake long enough to find out Cassian’s condition. But her body betrayed her and after a minute she slipped into a deep sleep. 

——

Jyn knew she was dreaming, but it was a good dream so she didn’t care.

They were in a cantina - some little hole-in-the-wall place that Cassian had recommended - and they had a table in the back to themselves. She and Bodhi were laughing so hard that they were leaning against each other for support as Chirrut grinned at them across the table.

“Stop lying to them.” Baze shook his head ruefully, but the corners of his mouth were twitching upward.

“That is exactly what happened! My memory is flawless,” Chirrut rejoined.

“How old were you?” Jyn asked when she could catch her breath.

“Fifteen,” Chirrut replied.

“Thirteen,” Baze mouthed.

“Now who’s lying to them?” Chirrut playfully swatted Baze’s arm, which started Bodhi laughing again.

Jyn looked across the room to where Cassian was getting their drinks. 

“You are aware that there is a 56% chance that someone in this establishment will try to murder one or more of you,” K-2 observed loudly as he lumbered behind him.

Cassian winced. “Kay…”

“That’s if the substances in those drinks don’t kill you, and there’s a 37% probability of that.”

Jyn and Cassian shared a look and he smiled, wide and honest as if they were sharing the best in-joke in the universe. Jyn smiled back because the mission was over. They’d won and they were all together and safe at last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This still may need some cleaning up, but I think it's in a better state than it was when I published it as a stand-alone story last night. In the end, I decided it was probably better placed here.


	7. Coda

They had been in flight for a while when the shuttle suddenly dropped out of hyperspace.

“Is that…?” Tonc began, pointed at a series of warning lights.

“Yes, I see it,” Bodhi adjusted the power flow away from the damaged section as he spoke. Damaged during the firefight on the landing pad? Damaged during his unorthodox jump to hyperspace? He wouldn’t be able to tell until he could check the ship over. But one thing he was sure about: they needed to land. Quickly. “Find a habitable world - somewhere we can put down to make repairs.”

Tonc searched frantically and finally found the relevant controls. Star maps appeared on a small screen in the center of the cockpit readouts. “Umm, here’s one. It’s not too far. Do you think we can make it?”

“We’ll either make it or the engines will shut down and we’ll be left drifting in space.” Bodhi wished he could think of something more encouraging to say, but that was the reality of the situation. “Setting course, maximum safe speed.”

“Right.” Tonc was slower making his changes, but he did make them correctly. 

Bodhi smiled slightly. At least they’d gotten this far, escaped the Death Star and delivered the schematics to the Alliance against all odds. The thought made him feel much more optimistic. “What’s the name of the planet, just out of curiosity?”

“Looks like,” Tonc paused, “Takodana.”

The name sounded familiar, but Bodhi couldn’t remember why at the moment. “Takodana it is then.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you all (sanguinity) yell at me, I do have plans to continue this story. It will probably be in a separate work...well, three separate works, or at least that's what my outline looks like at the moment.


End file.
